Sept. 17, 2014
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Award is the first of its kind in Texas
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Corporation for National and Community Service’s (CNCS) Social Innovation Fund (SIF) today announced that Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, Inc. (MHM) received $10 million in investments, the results of a highly competitive open grant competition. The investment, announced at the SIF’s Annual Grantee Convening, in Washington D.C., will help expand innovative, evidence-based solutions to challenges facing low-income communities across the country in the areas of youth development, economic opportunity and healthy futures.
Five years into the program launched by President Obama in 2009, the Social Innovation Fund and its non-federal partners have committed to invest more than $700 million in effective community solutions. Including the grants announced today, the SIF portfolio now represents a $229.3 million federal investment in partnership with 27 intermediaries co-investing in 217 nonprofits in 37 states and Washington, DC. This modest federal investment is expected to leverage more than $540 million in non-federal match commitments.
Since its inception, MHM has invested over $550 million in healthcare services through its clinics and programs, as well as through its partnerships, and has the unique distinction of being the largest private funding source for community health care to low-income families and the uninsured in South Texas.
This year alone, MHM has provided $22.3 million in grants to 75 non-profit agencies that are also providing primary medical and dental care, behavioral health and social services to low-income families and the uninsured in their respective communities. The funds received through the Social Innovation Fund will be used to provide additional funding to organizations through a competitive application process, ranging from $250,000 to $2 million, and will include rigorous measurement and evaluation procedures to build sub-grantees’ capacity to increase the level of evidence supporting the efficacy of their programs.
“We are excited about this new class of Social Innovation Fund grantees because they are among the most cutting edge grantmakers in social innovation,” said Wendy Spencer, CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service. “The investment in these organizations will not only bolster local programs capacity to serve more individuals in need, but also provide communities with programs that work.”
“Funding from the Social Innovation Fund will complement MHM’s current investments in South Texas, while at the same time, as part of its Board of Directors’ strategic direction, allow the organization to engage in regional collaborative strategies,” explained Kevin C. Moriarty, MHM president and CEO. “Most importantly, it will allow us to leverage critical resources for agencies that are providing much-needed services in areas of tremendous need.”
This new class of grantees represents several firsts for the SIF, and addresses the major funding priorities of this competition to reemphasize innovation, expand opportunity for those in greatest need and collective impact over incremental programmatic gains. The 2014 cohort includes the SIF’s first two community foundation grantees, expansion to high-needs populations in the South East, South West and Northern California, and programs focused on older women facing economic hardship, childhood hunger and Opportunity Youth (youth 16-24 disconnected from school and work). And, in an overwhelming response to a new funding priority, all seven grantees will be leveraging and testing, a Collective Impact model, where communities work collaboratively across sectors to identify challenges, set goals and track progress together.
“Five years ago the Social Innovation Fund was created to find solutions that work, and make them work for more people – signaling a shift in the way the government and philanthropy invests in community solutions. Five years later, we’ve become a national solutions accelerator and amplifier, investing hundreds of millions of dollars, along with our private sector partners to prove, improve and scale solutions that work. This newest class of grantees will take our work to new heights and deeper depths, with a greater emphasis on collective impact and data-driven mobilization, and an urgent focus on big bets to tackle some of the greatest challenges facing our communities,” said Michael Smith, Director of the Social Innovation Fund.
In the next several months Methodist Healthcare Ministries will hold an open competition to select innovative, effective nonprofits to receive grants. These solutions must have at least preliminary evidence of impact, and nonprofits will work the SIF and the intermediary organizations to design rigorous evaluation plans that will increase levels of evidence and lead to replicable models and meaningful lessons for the broader social sector.
